Benito Juarez

Small historical note for all those mexican living abroad ( I presume if you are in Mexico you couldn't possibly forget). Did you remember that yestarday was a bank holiday back in Mexico? Yeep, that's right it was the birthday of Don Benito Juarez (yeep, that guy who kicked the church out of government affairs) . This one in particular was the celebration of his 200th anniversary.

I hate when it happens!

Recently, I went to a concert to the Bridgewater Hall. The music was great! There was a little of everything: extracts from very famous operas, overtures, ballads, and a selection of british songs. However, I had the bad fortune of being sitted besides a very noisy old lady. She kept murmuring to in a very low voice (but I still could hear it!). Then, at some point, she decided she liked the music and started humming. If that was not enough, she suddenly decided to have a candyand promptly proceeded to get one out from her purse. That wouldn't be bad had she decided to do it while the conductor of the orchestra gave a small intruduction to the next melody. But that wouldn't happen. No, the lady decided to get her candy once the orchestra had started playing, and of course the candy came in one of those very noisy wrappings! Furtunately, after the interval I was able to change seats and get far away from that noisy lady.

Some weeks before, I went to another concert by the Manchester Camerata who were playing the last three of Mozart's symphonies. By the way that particular concert was being recorded live. Naturally, the conductor informed the audience about this. So you would expect everyone to double check their mobiles and any other possible source of annoying noise. Well, no. It so happens that a lady didn't switched off her mobile so at the middle of the second movement of Mozart's Symphony no. 40 her mobile started ringing, utterly spoiling an otherwise wonderful concert!

Is it really so difficult for people to avoid doing such things. Come on! Whenever I go to a concert hall the first thing I do before entering the auditorium is switch off the mobile. Why is it that people always choose to open a candy bag when the orchestra is still playing? Can't they wait until the orchestra stops between melody and melody.

Old blog

If you are interested in visiting my old blog, here is the address:

http://spaces.msn.com/legrandchinois/blog/?_c02_owner=1

It only has two entries so don't get too excited. However one of them is kinda interesting (about 1st March being New Year).

Le grand chinois

Some days ago, a couple of friends asked me why I used 'le grand chinois' as my blog address. The answer is that it comes from an old nickname my friends (back in Mexico) use. So for those who are interested, here is the story.

Many of you may know that my grandparents are japanese, so it comes to no surprise that I look a little like a japanese. However, in Mexico, any asian (chinese, korean, japanese, etc) looking guy is most of the time called 'chino' (chinese). So eventhough, I repeated many times that my grandparents are japanese and not chinese!, everyone back in Mexico kept on calling me 'chino'. That nickname was originally used with one of my older brothers. There was a time when my nickname had nothing to do with 'chino'. However, my brother's best friend's brother (are you still following?) was in the same class as myself and he started calling me 'chino' and naturally everyone decided it was a very fitting nickname and promptly started calling me that way too.

That nickname followed me all over Mexico, and I have to say I moved quite a bit around (Mexico City - Aguascalientes - Mexico City - Queretaro - Mexico City (yes agian!) - Queretaro). I am not really sure if I was called 'chino' in Aguascalientes (that was a long time ago - back in 1981).

A few months after arriving at Queretaro one of my classmates, who later became one of my best friends, asked me if I had a nickname back in Mexico City. My reply: 'chino'. It was not long after everyone at school started using that nickname. That was back in 1988, when I was in 6th Grade. The nickname managed to survive Junior High, an High School. When I started University, I thought it wouldn't be used anymore. How wrong I was. It so happens that an old friend of my best friend decided to join the same University and the same degree I was joining. So he got the nickname from my friend and he started using it... soon after everyone else followed.

When I decided to start studying French with some of my friends, they adopted the french translation 'chinois' as a new nickname. They really had a hard time figuring that out!

After such a long time of being called 'chino', 'chinese' or 'chinois' I grew fond of it. So that's why I have 'chinois' in my blog address.

A good restaurant...

What makes a good restaurant? Is it the food? Is it the service? Is it the location? or is it perhaps the toilets?

A few days ago a friend and I went out for dinner to a restaurant. I've been there before and I like it. I have to say I used to have good memories of this place. So we walked in and waited to be seated. As usual not long after, we were comfortably seated and reading the menu. After a few minutes deciding what to eat, we promptly ordered our choices and eagerly waited for them to arrive. In the meantime, I had a very nice and enjoyable chat with my friend. So far so good. Unfortunately for me, nature kicked in and I had to go to the toilet. It is at this moment when all good memories I had from this place vanished into thin air. First of all, the toilet (at least the gents) is as big as those in an ensuite room in a University hall of residence. In other words, it is tiny. That by itself wouldn't be too bad, as long as it is clean and neat. However, in this case it was not clean and it was not neat. For a start, I notice there was no toilet paper (luckily I didn't need it), or better said the little paper available was laying in the floor. Then the washbasin while not being dirty, it did look old and poorly serviced (old and rusty taps). Finally, the hand dryer is one of those old ones that if you actually want dry your hands with it it'll take about 15 minutes. So I have to say that this toilet experience was disappointing. I couldn't help but think: 'I hope the kitchen is not like this.' When I went back to my table and once the food arrived I wasn't able to enjoy it. The food might have been good, but those toilets certainly killed my enthusiasm to try it.

I believe good food and service are what we look for when we chose a restaurant. I am also certain that clean and neat toilets don't make a good restaurant. However, poorly cared toilets will certainly make me think twice before going back to any restaurant.